25-ish Days of Newsies
by emmy313
Summary: Winter/Christmas Newsies Drabbles! I'm going to try to get to 25 by the end of December. 1. Newlywed Jack and Kat 2. Baby Jack with his family
1. Jack's First Tree

**December 1900**

Katherine burst through the door with her arms full of boxes and her cheeks red from the cold.

Jack stood up from the couch. "What's all this, Ace?" He took a precariously leaning box from the top of her stack.

"Christmas decorations!" She said. She put the boxes down with a clatter and took off her coat. "I bought us some candles and a few red balls—I like red better than silver, don't you—and gathered some old things from my parents' house."

Jack lifted the top off the box he was holding. "This...this the one from your folks' place?"

"Yeah," Kat sat down on the floor of their little apartment. "Put it down; let's look at it."

Jack set the box down and plopped down next to his wife.

"Nativity is on top, I think." She rustled around and pulled out Mary and Joseph and animals carved in various shades of polished wood. "This isn't my favorite one, but Mama insisted on keeping the good ones at her house, and she gave Esther one as a wedding gift." She set up the Nativity on the rug beside her, like a little girl playing with dolls.

"'Ere's baby Jesus," Jack offered, holding the figure between his thumb and fingers.

The pile grew as Katherine unpacked a shallow box of fragile silver ornaments and long strands of itchy garland. ("But we'll want some more, I think, for the fireplace." Kat said.)

"Ah, I remember making these." Katherine carefully unwrapped a bundle of tissue paper, revealing a hastily painted red ceramic heart.

"Helen." Jack read the inscription. Kat unwrapped another—a white one that said Esther.

"I should let my sisters have theirs," Katherine set them aside. "But where is mine?" She pulled out a couple more ceramic rocking horses and angels and mittens. Most of them had obviously been made by Katherine and her sisters as little kids.

"Found it!" Kat unwrapped another heart.

"Jeez, Kat, how many Christmas trees did you have?"

"Just the big tall one in the parlor, usually." She said. "But Helen and I liked making the ornaments. Mama would let us decorate the backside however we wanted. The rest of the tree was just candles and red and silver balls. Sometimes popcorn. It had to be perfect, except for our little corner." She chuckled and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "What about you?"

Jack snorted. "Kitten, I ain't never had a Christmas tree in my life."

"Really? Never?"

"My folks weren't gonna spend their hard earned money on something that was just gonna make a mess and die," he said. "Not everyone's got maids and butlers." His parents had worked themselves to death as it was.

"I know," Kat said. She reached for his hand. "Did you all do anything for Christmas?"

"Did _my_ Irish Catholic parents celebrate Christmas?" He smiled. "Of course we did." He didn't tell her that it was getting harder to remember when his family was alive.

"And now that wes married," he squeezed her hand. "We can makes our own traditions. However we wants."

"Right!" Kat said, grinning.

Jack gingerly moved a bundle of ornaments from his lap and stood up. "Now, where do we need ta go to get us a tree?"


	2. Light the Way

**Christmas Eve 1887**

Jack 5, Ciara 4, Molly 9 months

Jack's mother's name is pronounced Ave-LEEN

It was just starting to snow as Evelyn and the children waited for Patrick to come home from work.

Molly, who had just learned to crawl, did laps around the kitchen table. Ciara pulled at the lace collar of her Christmas dress; Jack pressed his nose into the cold window.

"When will Da be home, Mama?" He asked. His breath fogged up the glass.

"Do we gotta go to church tonight, Mama?" Ciara asked. She joined Jack at the window, peering over the fire escape into the darkness. The bow in her hair had fallen down already.

"Of course." Evelyn came behind Ciara and re-tied the red ribbon in her dark, wild curls. "We'll go to Mass just as soon as ya da gets home. It's Christmas Eve."

Jack breathed on the window and used his finger to doodle in the condensation.

"Did you hafta go to church when you were little?" He asked.

"Yes, and we had a much longer an' harder walk."

"What was Ireland like, Mama?" Ciara always asked the same question.

Evelyn smiled. "I've somethin' to show you two," she said. "Somethin' my nephews loved that I've been meaning to do." She shuffled around in a cabinet for a candlestick and a fresh white candle.

"What are ya doing, Mama?" Ciara asked.

Evelyn sat down at the kitchen table and the two older kids climbed into her lap. "On a night like this, nearly two thousand years ago, there was a young lady and her husband. They had to travel a long, long way to a town called Bethlehem. The woman was a mighty special lady about to have a very special baby boy."

"Baby Jesus!" Ciara said.

"And Mother Mary," Jack added. "Right, Mama?"

"Right, darlin'" Evelyn said. "They knocked and knocked on doors—" Evelyn knocked on the table. "Hoping to find a place ta stay. But no one had room. Every place turned them away. No, no, no, they said. It was getting later and darker. They was awful tired and scared and their feet hurt from walkin'. Mary was about to have her baby on the back of a smelly old donkey! Joseph approached an innkeeper, who let them stay in the barn."

"Mama!" Molly whined at Evelyn's feet.

Evelyn swooped her up and settled the chubby baby in between her siblings. "I'm mighty glad you weren't born in a manager." She added, giving Molly a quick kiss on the head. "So, Our Lord was born in a barn. He was born next to sheep and goats and cows and horses. Mary knew that he was God with us, and she gently wrapped him up just like any mama would."

Ciara, who was never quiet, nodded solemnly.

Jack rolled the candle around on the table in front of him. "What's this for?"

Evelyn smiled. "Put it in the candlestick," she said. Jack did so.

"I wanted to do it!" Ciara cried.

"Hush, lass," Evelyn handed the candle to her daughter. "Take it to the window."

The kids slid out of her lap and ran to the window. Evelyn, carrying Molly and a box of matches, followed. "Mary and Joseph had no place to stay," she said. "So, wes light a candle to welcome them in, and ta welcome in any folks who needs a lovin' home."

"That's awful nice, Mama," Ciara said. She stood on her toes and reached for the matches. "Let me light it! Let me!"

"Let me!" Jack clawed at Evelyn, too. "I'm bigger."

"Shh," Evelyn shushed them. "Let me. Here, take Molly." Evelyn put the baby down in front of Jack and struck a match. It flickered.

She lit the candle. Molly reached for it and Jack took her hand.

The warm, steady flame melted the frost from the window. Evelyn scooped up Molly, and Jack pressed himself into her side. She wrapped her arm around him—had he gotten taller in a day?

Evelyn closed her eyes. Maybe, all the way across the ocean, in a little Irish farmhouse in the Wicklow mountains, her parents and big brothers, nieces and nephews and their babies gathered in front of their own flickering candle. "_Emmanuel_." Evelyn whispered. "God with us."


	3. Gimmel

November 1899

"_Gimmel_! Yes!" Les cried. He swept two pennies, a nickel, a cigar, and a broken candy cane into his growing pile of loot on the floor in front of him.

"Dammit, kid!" Race said.

Jack laughed and leaned back onto his elbows. He'd never seen his buddy lose a bet. The boys played poker almost every night; Race had a strong poker face and a quick mind for strategy. "Here," Jack tossed a penny into the center of the circle. So did Davey, Tommy, and Crutchie. Finch was out of change; he pulled a shiny cat-eye marble from his coat pocket.

"Give me that diddle." Race reached for the top.

"Dreidel." Les corrected.

"Wha'ever." Race said. The top spun and spun until it fell on its side with a ceramic clatter. "Ain't that the one that means half?"

Davey shook his head. "_Nisht_." He said. "Do nothing."

Race scowled. Tommy lit another cigar. It was Jack's turn.

"_Nisht_." Les announced.

Crutchie spun the dreidel. _Nisht_. "How come the miracle one means do nothin'?"

"Beats me." Davey said.

Tommy landed on _Hey_. "How's I supposed to take half a marble?"

"Ya don't," Jack said. "That's gonna be mine." He'd collected marbles since he was five.

"Is anyone going to add more coal to that fire?" Davey said as he reached across the circle for the dridel. "It's getting chilly in here."

"We ain't made o money, pretty boy." Race said.

"Nisht," Davey sighed.

Finch's turn. "What's that?"

"_Shtel_." Davey said.

"Share." Les said. "Everyone put something in."

"Stupid," Race muttered. "Here." He plucked Tommy's cigar from his hand.

"You ass!" Tommy lunged for him.

"Hey!" Les cried.

Jack calmly grabbed Race by the shoulder. "_Shtel_, Racer."

Race tossed in a penny and crossed his arms.

Les clapped his hands. "Okay, boys, this one is lucky," he said. He rubbed the dridel in his cupped hands and blew on it. "I can feel it. This is lucky."

"Let's go, shortstop." Jack said.

Les got on his knees and spun the top in the very center of the circle. The wooden blur spun...and spun...and spun...

"_Gimmel_! Again! Yes!"


	4. O Christmas Tree

**December 1895 **

"What do ya mean ya fellas never get a Christmas tree?" Crutchie said. "How do ya not get a tree?"

He and Jack were walking to their selling spot across from the bank on 35th street. "Jeez, kid," Jack said. His breath froze in the air. "Whens we got time to get somethin' that just gonna die in a couple weeks anyways? Where the hell would we put a tree?"

"In da living room," Crutchie insisted. "You don't think they pretty?"

"Charlie, I ain't never had a tree before," Jack said. "Just seen Miss Medda's."

"Really?" Crutchie said.

"My mama might've been a maid, but she wasn't 'bout to sweep up all them little needles." Jack said. "You tellin' me that shitty orphanage of yours had a Christmas tree?"

"Every year," The ten-year-old said.

Jack shook his head. "You ain't 'bout to tell me we need Santa to come to the lodge, are ya?"

Crutchie snorted. "Santa only gives presents to rich kids."

Jack nodded. He knew that too. His coat pulled tightly across his shoulders as he shifted his bag of papes. It was too small already. They all _needed_ so many things: Coats, gloves, socks, and shirts, cigars, cold medicine, and firewood. Better headlines. A Christmas tree, Jack thought, wasn't anywhere on that list.

Sunshine warmed the city as the boys settled themselves on the corner to shout the mundane headline. The quicker they sold out, the quicker they could head to Medda's or Jacobi's for a bite to eat and a chance to warm up before the evening pape came.

"Where could we go to get us a tree?" Crutchie asked. He was massaging his bad leg with his ungloved hand, but Jack didn't say anything about it.

"We ain't getting a tree," Jack said. "The nuns will bring us supper and hopefully some hand-me-downs, and try to get us to go to church. We'll sell plenty of papes Christmas Eve. That's it. That's how it been the whole time I been round here."

"Sounds nice," Crutchie said. "Be better with a tree."

…

It was pitch dark by time the boys all arrived back at the lodge. The evening headline had stunk. Almost everyone had lost money.

"Nobody wants no papes when theys just trying to get home before the sun sets," Finch complained. He rubbed his hands together to warm them.

Crutchie limped up the stairs alone to their freezing bedroom. He sat down on his bottom bunk, took a sock from under his pillow, and dumped a pile of pennies and nickels into his lap. Last year he was homeless. This year, he would get a Christmas tree. A dollar and sixty-three cents. He counted it a second time, just to be sure. A dollar and sixty-three cents. Surely that could get him _something_.

He carfully siphoned the money back into the sock with his cupped hand, then put the sock in his pocket. He buttoned his coat. He tied his boots tightly, put on his gloves and a scarf, and picked up his crutch. Christmas tree time.

.

Crutchie's brothers, too exhausted for being only 13 and 14, didn't notice he was gone. As the boys lit the little coal stove, ate dinner, and stretched out on the floor to play cards, they assumed he'd gone upstairs and fallen asleep.

It was just about bedtime when Race saw something out the window. The figure was limping towards them with slow, heavy steps. Who was that? The street lamps flickered. Were they carrying something? He stared for a while. "Holy shit, fellas," he said. "Crutchie's outside!"

A dozen boys tripped over each other to open the door. Crutchie came resolutely to the lodge, panting, with his crutch under one arm and dragging a scraggly little fir tree with the other.

"I told ya!" he shouted. His cheeks were cherry red from the cold. "I told ya I'd get us a tree!" He laughed. A couple of the boys ran to grab the tree. It was three feet tall, maybe, and nearly bald on one side.

Jack stood on the sidewalk with the door wide open behind him, just staring at Crutchie and this stupid little tree and his brothers, gathered in their sock feet on the cold, chipped cobblestone. "Jesus, kid!" he exclaimed. He watched Finch and Tommy try to hold the tree up straight. "Well," Jack finally shouted to Crutchie. "It leans a little bit, but so does the whole damn house. Come on inside 'fore ya catch ya deaths, boys, and let's set it up!"

Protective Jack is protective. Trying to play catch-up this weekend. Let me know what you all think!


End file.
